EVE Fiction

This story is a submission for Lunarisse Aspenstar's New Eden Capsuleer's Writing Contest - YC 117. This story is told Out of Character.



EXT. - AMARANTH HOLDING ON MISHI IV - SWAMP - DAY.

Kin drew back on the bowstring, hearing the Kreshwood sigh from pressure. The sightline of her arrow pointed into a sizeable grotto wet from intermittent rain. Sunlight formed moats in places where it fell through black clouds. Such was Amaranth, her family's ancestral Holding by right of fealty and Faith. It was an infertile neck of bog and overgrown forest. Only wild things grew here. The siege of nature had long driven out farmers, leaving only woodsmen, trappers, and other such forsaken men.

The cumbersome flapping of wings accompanied two shambled masses of feathers and claws. They descended in graceless flight to perch upon a dead tree. The tree hung like a gallow over the grotto. The great birds crooked their necks down towards the hole, their eyes hungry. In the rainlight Kin recognized the buzzards, her friends Huma and Benu. Their presence meant only one thing: someone had died inside the grotto.

Kin bowed her head in respect to the carrion birds, and in turn they waited for her to disembark first. Kin put away her arrow and slung her bow over her shoulder. She knelt down at the mouth of the grotto and sniffed the air, closing her eyes to parse the smells: moss and wet mud, wild Katcha roots, something like musk, the aroma of fresh blood.

She took hold of a bush that grew along the grotto wall and slung herself down. She was not afraid of the unkempt foliage or the sounds of wild creatures or even the dark. She landed on her feet, hunched down over the shape of a fallen body of a man, a Ni-Kunni by the looks of him. His clothes were torn, and his arms were twisted around as if he were flung. His chest was ripped open and ribs stuck out like spider legs. Lightning crackled along the clouds, warning Kin of an impending storm.



LIVING DANGEROUSLY PRODUCTIONS
PRESENTS

A JADE OKAMOTO
FILM

TWO PARABLES

ALI NANASE

TERRY LOUISE SPENCER

AND

JAMES SHARPE AS
DARIUS



PARABLE THE FIRST: LIVING IS FOR THE DEAD

INT. - WORMWOOD MANOR - AFTERNOON.

Lord Edam peered thoughtfully at the corpse her daughter had brought in. Kin and her ward, Absomian, waited until the Lord whispered a prayer over the dead man. Edam urged him to find his way to God's Judgment and perhaps, if he were found deserving, into Paradise.













Kin bowed her head, and Lord Edam her father let them be. Kin gave a thoughtful look to her ward, Absomian. He was a dark-skinned giant with the bluest of eyes, a Ni-Kunni of great fortitude and her childless uncle by relation. He'd helped her haul the dead man back from the grotto to Wormwood Manor. She nodded to him and Absomian took his leave.

Kin pondered the body of the dead man for a while, then set herself to work. She stripped him of his clothes and examined the hole in his torso, his limbs, his extremities, and under his hair. She would examine his hunting rifle and knife later. She checked the colors of things, the smells, the consistency. She looked for broken bones and cuts. The body was weighed. Blood, urine, stool, and marrow samples were collected. Every known gland was pricked with a syringe and a sample of their contents extracted. She put him on a rubber block to stretch out his torso. Where the rest of him was still intact, she made a wishbone-shaped incision extending to the shoulder joints and down past his hips. His innards were examined. She then systematically removed his organs one by one, dipping them in soft gelatinous formalin to make them easier to cut into later. She saved the eyes and the brain for the end. The husk of the dead man lay before her, not even his heart left within him. All he wore was his hair and fingernails.

She put on her hunting coat and went back to the grotto.



EXT. - AMARANTH HOLDING - SWAMP - NIGHT.

She looked for the sign of a bullet from the dead man's rifle and found one embedded in a rock. The footsteps of the animal that must've eaten him had disappeared, but she could still find his footsteps. She followed them back, losing them when she saw no sign of broken branches or footsteps anywhere across the untouched wilderness, but Kin was a persistent one. Finally, his footsteps died on the outskirts of a settlement, Coal Town it was named.

Coal Town was small, but a few thousand lived in it. Asking around, she found nothing.

Satisfied, she had found all she could through tracking she returned home.

I will post the second part of this fiction piece tomorrow.

♥

INT. - RKARD PLANTATION HOUSE - LIBRARY - EVENING.

Darius Rkard stood with his elbow against the mantle of the fireplace, only half-leaning on his elephant head cane. No fire burned in it because it was summer and balmy on Kador VI. Kaspar was seated with legs crossed on a chair examining a book and Banu was in the kitchen tasting wines.

Everyone was flush with wine and spirits.



Rage dripped into Darius's heart, one drop of wine at a time. The conversation had not departed from the subject of his genetic extraction. It was a topic Kaspar was obsessed with, because it gave the bastard some legitimacy. The insult alone wasn't a threat, but Kaspar could easily one day find himself chatting idly with a Councilman or a Bishop or, God forbid, a Cardinal. Kaspar the governor was used to his lavish lifestyle, afforded by his brother's allowance.

Perhaps it was the True Amarr in Kaspar. His position of privilege within the austere social order of the Empire made him a weakling. He knew nothing of toil and hard work. His hand couldn't hold a whip with all required strength, or strike with the snap of the lash to bring a slave to heel. He was a worthless illegitimate, an envious half-blood, a Rkard of lowered standard and lacking grace.

Darius gripped the elephant head cane tightly and limped over to Kaspar. He raised it up high, and before his brother could say anything, brought it crashing down on his forehead. And again the elephant head reared, and again it struck Kaspar.



In the kitchen, the commotion of the beating could be heard and the house slaves looked at each other, afraid. Banu surveyed the faces around her, then ran to the library.



To the library, Banu ran in barefoot and then froze. Darius hung monstrous and dark over the body of his brother Kaspar. Blood painted the chair Kaspar sat in and splattered all over the white marble floor. Kaspar's face was beaten to a pulp. He was barely recognizable. He was not breathing.

Banu screamed, and she fell to her knees in tears at the sight of her husband. Hearing her whimpering, Darius turned about, levelling his eyes like cannons on his brother's wife, the witness. Banu was frightened, the sight of the great Lord poised to come at her full bore. She crawled backwards and away from Darius, then picked herself up and ran towards the great arched entrance. She was fleeing.



Banu ran past the kitchen, where Goldfinch saw her. Their eyes met for only a moment before Banu was gone, into the night.

Goldfinch ran to the library, and she saw her Lord. Darius was painted in blood, and his ferocity pooled in a halo around him. His hair was in a fray. Her chin rose until her eyes met the Lord's. Her heart pounded like a fist. She felt light headed. The Lord looked down at Goldfinch from his great height. His silent instructions to her were clear. He needed her to do it.

She stared at him for a moment that seemed to last an eternity, then ran to the great arched entrance after Banu. On her way past the kitchen she snagged a knife.



EXT. - RKARD PLANTATION - NIGHT.

Nightbirds called cautiously, relaying secret messages. The moon would not come out for many weeks. The night sky was the darkest of red. The screeching of cicadas filled the space between the tree trunks. The wind ran its fingers through the tops of trees, but it did not dare linger for long.

In the darkness Banu was blind. Her soft feet were not used to the underbrush, and her hair found itself caught in braches and ripped by passing trunks. She stumbled hands over feet. In the distance there was the sound of a stream. Banu tiptoed over the pebbled bank and waded through the shallow stream. When she tried to climb out onto the far bank she tripped and fell.

And just then, Goldfinch came upon her. She looped her arm around Banu's shoulders, locking her in with the strength of a wooden stockade. She held the tip of the knife just under Banu's ear, then sliced it clean across her neck. Banu thrashed for some moments as she bled out, but then she lay still. Her blood covered Goldfinch in its warmth.

The cicadas had fell silent.